Federer, the
most successful player at the year-end championship with six titles,
equaled Ivan Lendl's record of 12 semifinal appearances in winning his
group ahead of Japanese debutant Kei Nishikori.
"Clearly I'm very happy to play a good match today. I knew I was qualified, so maybe I went in a bit more relaxed,'' Federer
said.
''It's not the way I thought it was going to go, but there's
always next year for Andy.''
"I had the upper hand from the baseline, which hasn't always happened
against him," said Federer. "But I definitely was able to play on my
terms. For me, things went very well. I was able to put Andy under
pressure very often, and I think the match couldn't have gone any better
for me really."
It was a ruthless win for Federer, and humiliation for Murray, who last won only one game in 2007 at Miami, against Novak Djokovic.
''It
was a tough night. I've lost slam finals and stuff, which has been very
tough,'' Murray said. ''But in terms of the way the match went, it was
not ideal from my side of the court, far from it.''
In
the other group, Djokovic will be guaranteed the year-end No. 1 ranking
for the third time in four years if he beats Tomas Berdych on Friday.
Going into the last round-robin matches, all four players can still make
it to the semis; U.S. Open champ Marin Cilic takes on Australian Open
champ Stan Wawrinka.
Before playing Murray, the second-seeded Federer had already secured a semis berth after Nishikori defeated David Ferrer
4-6, 6-4, 6-1 in the afternoon who replaced injured Milos Raonic. That left Murray needing to defeat the
17-Grand Slam champion in straight sets to make it to the last four at
the O2 Arena and thwart Nishikori.
But
Federer, yet to drop a set, made a perfect start, losing only eight
points in a 23-minute first set without even serving well.
Murray,
who fought hard this autumn to qualify for the season finale, continued
to struggle in the second set. Federer opened a 5-0 lead and moved 30-0
up on Murray's service but missed an easy volley before the Scot
managed to hold to salvage some pride, and give British fans a cheer.
''If I played well, he probably
still would have won anyway,'' the fifth-seeded Murray said. ''He was
striking the ball very, very clean. After the first few games of the
match, he played exceptionally well. Made very few mistakes. Was
hitting the ball off the middle of the racket on serve, returns. He
maybe didn't hit his first serve as well as he can, but apart from that,
everything else was very clean.''
Federer has an ATP World Tour-best 71-11 match record on the season, which includes five titles from 10 finals. His biggest win at the season finale came at Tennis Masters Cup Shanghai in 2005, when he defeated Gaston Gaudio 6-0, 6-0.
Murray ends his campaign with a 59-20 mark in 2014, which included three titles in the final six weeks of the regular season to qualify for the seventh straight year.
Date: 13th November 2014, Source: AP and ATP
Federer has an ATP World Tour-best 71-11 match record on the season, which includes five titles from 10 finals. His biggest win at the season finale came at Tennis Masters Cup Shanghai in 2005, when he defeated Gaston Gaudio 6-0, 6-0.
Murray ends his campaign with a 59-20 mark in 2014, which included three titles in the final six weeks of the regular season to qualify for the seventh straight year.
Date: 13th November 2014, Source: AP and ATP
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